Undergraduate / 'the experience of teaching seniors' - Stumped - Common App [2]

I watched quietly as he scratched his head and looked around trying to make sense of the world around him. It was his first stay back for the Reading Program: a unique scheme that my school has started since last two years which provides seniors with the opportunity to help specially-abled juniors. Jay has minor dyslexia and hence he couldn't read or write as his classmates could.

When I first met Jay I had no idea what a huge impact this small child was going to have on me.
Although the first few months were difficult for me, and he had seemingly made no progress given his stubborn child spirit, he began to open up to new ideas over time. I sensed that understanding any work or aspect parallels to teaching a child. To achieve the goal of understanding I realized that I have to stick to it even when it seems to be of no avail. Thought the time spent on it might seem completely redundant, it contributes towards making the foundation of an accurate understanding of the world as a whole.

I have had the experience of teaching seniors from my class and I wanted to approach Jay is a similar fashion. However, soon I realized that it wouldn't work for him. This failure in my teaching strategy taught me that every new goal requires new planning and that I had to be an impartial observer to the past to learn from it. I couldn't risk being subjective if I were to learn from my past. I tried to employ the teaching methods that my teachers used and that failed too. Ultimately I did figure out a great strategy though in direct conflict with my beliefs: I was not used to giving in to student demand. But that was the only way out. It taught me that one need to be flexible to reach out to other. I had to unlearn old habits and learn new ones.

We both follow cricket. It so happened once that we got into a debate over the issue of runs scored and wickets taken. The debate ended with me telling him to start working and that I knew better. However I soon found out that he had been right. This small realization taught me to resist the temptation to judge and justify. I thought that as he was younger he couldn't know better.

Once, I asked him to sing for me. To my surprise he went up to the front and asked everyone to pay attention as he sang and danced through a complete Bollywood song. Suddenly I realized that there were so many instances that I had let pass by because I was afraid of failure and ridicule. I understood that 'it's better to have tried and failed than not have tried ever.'

Now, after about two years, Jay is a changed person. He can read and write(with some ease). We did change for good. I hope to stick to these beliefs and I do hope that newer experiences further help me to learn such valuable lessons.

Undergraduate / innovate through failure - Common App essay topic 1 [NEW]

Common App Prompt A: Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have face and its impact on you.

It was 23rd August, 2005.

We had just moved into our new home and I had developed an intriguing passion for creating a jet engine. I must confess that it was selfishly motivated: It was to enable me to outrun all my friends by being miraculously faster than them in weekend bike races. I was what my parents called 'restless', my teachers describes as 'hyperactive' but I believed 'pure genius material.'

I drew out rough sketches in two days. The construction, though, took me four weeks. By the time I completed the project I had my homemade version of a jet engine: a steel cylinder with a bulging center that still smelt of diesel, characteristics attributed to its earlier job of a fuel pipe, plastic propellers (courtesy of my toy windmills) which were propelled by three batteries (a favor from the innumerous electronic cars that my dad was so fond of gifting). And then there was the (literal) fuel injection system. I had read about them and I knew that there was no way I could procure one. The best alternative was to make one: I made a hollow sphere of clay and punctured it at two places. One was connected to a tube in which I 'injected' fuel with a syringe, while other bore straw to let it out. My innocent face was a great aid in tricking the gas station employee.

It was the day of a magnificent failure.

Needless to say, the first trial was quiet awesome (as I see it) and terrible (as my parents see it). I had tied it to my monster truck and I was ready to BLAST OFF when everything went haywire.

To start with I had dropped a burning matchstick to light up the fuel. The fuel did catch fire and so did everything. For the two seconds which I choose to believe it worked, it raced across the porch right into my mother's garden (she hates anyone touching her flowers). It was as if it had suddenly become a little me: doing all the things that were a strict NO. By the time, I doused it with a bucket of water; it had totally destroyed two of my mom's best rose plants, left the west wall scorched except for the two white outlines which perfectly matched the roses and nearly half of the perfect lawn charred. (I called it pest control)

(It just dawns on me that I am meant to be an innovator).

I made many different versions; all failed. At the end, I was left with four blown engines and a spark to go beyond the limits and innovate. Michael Jordon's, "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." decribes the change that i went through

P.S. I still mourn for all my toys who volunteered to sacrifice their lives for science.

thanks

Undergraduate / technology 4 betterment - UC prompt 1 [2]

Prompt: Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

Every day and moment; and every event and person; leaves a subtle or significant mark in our lives. From my journey collecting these marks, emerged two enduring loves - technologies and machines, and people. And these loves define my dreams and aspirations.

The genesis of these was Sunday visits as a child with my father to the foundry he set up and runs. I was fascinated by how he gave shape to the products, and lives of people around him. Science of metals and alloys and technology of making the casting fascinated me.

These ignited an intense curiosity about how things work and how to make them better. I began by dismantling toys, and then moved on to building experimental jet engines (with clay and steel cylinders, and literal fuel injection system using a tube and syringe). I revelled in science and technology. My school encouraged and gave me the wings I needed to explore these interests. The creativity that I evolved through such projects (individual and in teams)ultimately led to my selection and award of the Bal Shree for Creative Science at India level. Engineering - which allows me to use science and technology to give shape to new products, better processes and thus more comfortable human lives took root as career. This was my immediate world - my family, school and friends.

However, in terms of the larger sphere, I am a global citizen who is very proud of his Gujarat (my state) which has over the years contributed immensely to the political leadership (Gandhiji and Sardar Patel), business leadership (Ambanis and Lalbhais) and overall economic growth of India. This has been possible backed by a fundamental tolerance, enterprise, and perspective of responsibility to larger good.

I am an Indian. I come from the largest democratic country in the world; a country made of extremes: we host multimillion Common Wealth Games and we have people dying of hunger. I come from a country where lepers with severed limbs wheel around the roads in makeshift wooden carts in desperation of mobility and what automobile giants such as BMW and Mercedes describe as their biggest growing market.

As a 'privileged' Indian and a sensitive and conscientious Gujarati, technology for betterment of people - that is my purpose because people with their eccentricities, expectations and limitations make the world go around. My love for people evolved over meeting and interacting with varied genre through eclectic interests: through voracious reading I met devourers of books, through science I met brilliant minds, through trekking expeditions I met those who conquer themselves to define new boundaries and through community service I met those who are happy and can give even in tough personal situations. I know we, the people, are not perfect, but we are incredible and so - Technology with a purpose.

Engineering and economics which would enable me to bring innovations to the larger public became my dream and aspiration through this world of mine.

p.s. because i feel strongly about he topic, i was not able to write it in the humour way i usually do.
plz let me know if you find the reading too boring